A treatise on the effects and properties of cold, with a sketch, historical and medical, of the Russian campaign / Translated by John Clendinning, with an appendix.

  • Beaupre, Moricheau.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the effects and properties of cold, with a sketch, historical and medical, of the Russian campaign / Translated by John Clendinning, with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    128/404 (page 104)
    though less hot, was as radiant as in the south of France, but as soon as he left the horizon, it grew very cold ; a piercing air proclaimed the ne- cessity of lighting good fires in the bivouacks, and the thick hoar frost, which covered the ground in the morning, was a signal precursory to the frosts, on which the Russians built the hope of our ruin, and their own deliverance. An orderly retreat at the end of September or be- ginning of October would have saved the lives of thousands. The declared and predetermined design of the Russians not to make peace, their new hostile dispositions, the distance of our army from the centre of its resources, the great numbers of sick tobe taken care of, the general indigence and want of every kind, the prospect of all that was to be feared from an enemy daily reinforced, and from a harsh climate preparing its horrors, at length forced upon us a retreat unexampled in mili- tary history. It is the historian’s part to point out the improvidence and false calculation of a proud victor, as the origin of the disasters that overwhelmed the army. The friend of man sums up its causes ; he observes their effects moral and physical on the individuals whose health he is en- trusted to watch ; but, exposed as he is himself to the influence of the same causes which he can- not escape, and deprived of means of assistance, )]e can but lament and weep over the deplorable